Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants

Carol Ness, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Wednesday, March 21, 2007

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FOR THE FOOD SUPPLY column kickoff, the story is about some restaurants that have stopped serving bottled water for sustainability reasons. This photo is at Nopa restaurant in San Francisco. Waitress, Jennifer Skiman, serving dining customer, Kristina Campbell from SF, some filtered water. Event on 3/14/07 in San Francisco. photo by Craig Lee / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

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FOR THE FOOD SUPPLY column kickoff, the story is about some restaurants that have stopped serving bottled water for sustainability reasons. This photo is at Nopa restaurant in San ... more

Photo: Photo By Craig Lee

Photo: Photo By Craig Lee

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WATERSUPPLY_351_cl.JPG
FOR THE FOOD SUPPLY column kickoff, the story is about some restaurants that have stopped serving bottled water for sustainability reasons. This photo is at Nopa restaurant in San Francisco. Waitress, Jennifer Skiman, serving dining customer, Kristina Campbell from SF, some filtered water. Event on 3/14/07 in San Francisco. photo by Craig Lee / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

WATERSUPPLY_351_cl.JPG
FOR THE FOOD SUPPLY column kickoff, the story is about some restaurants that have stopped serving bottled water for sustainability reasons. This photo is at Nopa restaurant in San ... more

Photo: Photo By Craig Lee

Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants

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At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water. It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.

Incanto, in San Francisco's Noe Valley, and Poggio, in Sausalito, pioneered the trend four years ago. But for several years, no other restaurants wanted to give up popular -- and profitable -- bottled water.

Then Nopa, the San Francisco North of Panhandle hot spot, took the plunge when it opened last summer. And so did Ici, the Berkeley ice cream boutique.

And now, Chez Panisse, the godmother of the sustainability movement, is jumping on board, serving East Bay MUD's finest, filtered and bubbly in carafes approved by Alice Waters herself.

"Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to. Shipping bottles of water from Italy doesn't make sense," says Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse. Management hopes to complete the switch from Santa Lucia acqua con gaz to house-made sparkling water this week at both the restaurant and upstairs cafe. Chez Panisse stopped offering bottled still water last summer.

At Nopa, "Our goal is to be local," says co-owner Jeff Hanak. "We can't do it with a lot of things, like Scotch, but we try to do it with the things we can."

Water is fundamental, and it used to be that the questions about it, at least in restaurants, were as simple as "still or sparkling?"

Among the new questions about bottled water: Is it spring water or filtered tap water? Does it come in plastic or glass? How much energy is spent to bottle and ship it, often thousands of miles from Italy or France? And are municipal water supplies at risk from corporations thirsty for bigger shares of the lucrative bottled water business?

Bottled water habits

When it comes to water, Americans chose bottled stuff to the tune of 26 gallons per person last year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. That's $11 billion worth.

Restaurants are a small, but influential, part of that.

Their move away from bottled water reflects concerns not about the bottom line, but about the environmental costs of bottling and transporting water, the energy spent recycling the glass, and keeping plastic out of landfills.

At Chez Panisse, which typically goes through 24,000 bottles of Santa Lucia a year, the only hard part of the switch has been logistical -- carving out space for a carbonator in what's essentially an old house crammed to the gills with two busy restaurants, Kossa-Rienzi says.

First, local sparkling waters like Calistoga were considered an option. But they proved too heavily carbonated for the Panisse palate.

The solution turned out to be simple: a $400 carbonator the size of a big toaster, which Kossa-Rienzi found online. It's basically a tank of carbon dioxide and a water line connection. The carbon dioxide is injected into the water, creating fizzy bubbles.

Chez Panisse's was delivered last week, and installation involved little more than hooking into the reverse-osmosis charcoal filtering system already in use, and running a plastic line from the carbonator to a tap at the bar.

Selecting just the right decanter was almost more complicated. But Chez Panisse hoped to be in the sparkling water business in time for World Water Day -- tomorrow.

It will be interesting to see if the trend takes off nationally. Bottled water is a big money-maker for restaurants, which can buy it for $1 or $2 a pop, and sell it for $7 or $9.

The profitability of bottled water overall -- not just in restaurants -- has created another issue that plays into decisions about what kind of water to drink.

Municipal supplies at risk?

That's the potential risk to municipal water supplies, according to the authors of a new book "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water," (286 pages, John Wiley & Sons, $27.95). Much of it is public water, and it's being filtered, bottled and sent to other regions and countries.

Leal is campaigning to wean San Francisco's city offices off bottled water, and has mostly succeeded in her own offices, which manages public water for 2.4 million people in the Bay Area.

Chemical concerns

Not all decisions about bottled versus tap come down to food miles and bottle-clogged landfills. Other issues include how it tastes, chlorination and, for the immune-impaired, some microbes. There are concerns about industrial chemicals that can infiltrate water supplies and worries about chemicals that leach from plastic water bottles. But those questions cut both ways, since most bottled water starts as tap water.

For those who, like the restaurants, choose to stick with tap water, home filters have become a popular choice. And people eager to make their own sparkling water can find what they need with a simple Google search.

The restaurants that have banished bottles find that most of their customers are happy about it, once they find out the reason.

At Chez Panisse, it's possible that a few customers may be miffed -- free bottles of sparkling Santa Lucia water were a common perk handed out to regulars.

But Kossa-Rienzi doubts it will be much of an issue.

"I think most people in the area where we live are going to be very open to it," Kossa-Rienzi says.